


Inimitable

by bumblebeesknees



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotionally Fraught Reunions, Established Relationship, M/M, Memory Magic, Plot and Porn but Mostly Feelings, Secret Identity, Time Travel, Undercover Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-26 20:20:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13865304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bumblebeesknees/pseuds/bumblebeesknees
Summary: Stuck in London in 1882 without Magnus’ magic, the way back to New York in the 21st century requires securing a charmed amulet from the Magnus who lives in that time. Thankfully, Alec has a proven track record of being the kind of man Magnus wants. This is both good and bad news.-“It’s the only way,” says Magnus, grim. “And it’ll work. We already know that just one look is all it’ll take for him to go for you."





	Inimitable

**Author's Note:**

> a couple weeks ago i was listening to [wait for it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSwF-iwrT2k) from the hamilton soundtrack and was incredibly emotionally distraught and this story... is somehow what grew out of it. the rest of my life had to take a backseat to this fic for the last week, so there is a HUGE relief inside of me to have it done and posted, even though it's the middle of the night :D
> 
> i hope you all enjoy reading! <3

Despite Magnus knowing it would take more than his simple explanation to get Alec’s buy in, it’s still frustrating to see his doubtful expression. 

“I don’t like this,” says Alec. There’s a deep frown forming on his forehead. “This feels underhanded.”

“You and I have both done things that are much more morally questionable than this, Alexander.”

Just today, they had to steal the clothes they are currently wearing from one of the more expensive looking townhouses. The small room they’re in right now in a semi-respectable corner of south London was bought for the night with the coins Alec had pickpocketed from a wealthy looking businessman just an hour back. Magnus had purchased the room and Alec had to sneak in through the window so the suspicious innkeeper didn’t send a runner to Scotland Yard and the whole endeavor had been so demeaning that it reminded Magnus just why he’s grateful that humanity as a whole has moved forward over the next hundred years.

And now Magnus is sitting on the tiny bed with a questionable history so that his anxious boyfriend has space to do his pacing. 

Granted, it’s probably not a very satisfying experience since Alec can take only three of his long strides before he has to turn back around but Magnus is doing what he can. 

“I don’t care what we’ve done,” is Alec’s stubborn response. “It’s _you_. I’m not gonna be _morally questionable_ with you.”

“I’m giving you permission. Doing this – it doesn’t make you a bad person, all right? It’s not like you’re trying to make him fall in love with you and then leaving him hanging–” 

Actually, now that Magnus is saying it out loud, he realizes with no small amount of distress there’s a very real chance that this might happen. How long had it taken Magnus to be enamoured with Alec when they had first met? Barely an hour. And it hadn’t taken much longer than that for that interest to become affection, and that affection to become love. 

Alec hadn’t even been _trying_ to charm him then.

Nonetheless, Magnus perseveres, “Just be clear that you’re only looking for a good time tonight. And after my magic’s back, we’ll return the amulet, I’ll wipe his memories, and this’ll be something we’ll laugh about a year from now.” 

But Alec’s shaking his head.

“You don’t understand,” he says. “And I get that I’ve gotten my hands dirty before – bloodied them, even – but there are some lines that I’m not going to cross, okay? Even if you say that it’s not cheating–”

“It’s not being unfaithful,” says Magnus, even as something twists in his chest. The thought of someone else looking at Alec with intent, touching him, _kissing_ – “It’s me. He’s literally me from a hundred and thirty-five years ago.”

“Okay, that’s a technicality – and on top of that, I’m not gonna – how d’you expect me to be okay with _seducing_ you under false pretences so I can get into your apartment and steal something?”

“Alec, that wouldn’t even be on the top five list of–”

Magnus cuts himself off when he sees the look that overtakes Alec’s face, a terrible mix of hurt and anger and disbelief. It would be enough to drive a knife through Magnus’ heart on any given day, but somehow, the way the gas lantern casts shadows on Alec’s drawn, exhausted face – it’s worse. 

Damn it, thinks Magnus. It takes all that he has not to close his eyes, to protect them from the sight of it. Magnus has always loathed this century, and now he has one more reason to do so. 

“You know,” Alec grits out, “if your main argument is that this would _hardly_ be the worst of all the ways I’ve wronged you–”

“That’s not what I meant,” interrupts Magnus. He doesn’t have the heart to hear Alec carelessly say something right now, something that will make it painfully obvious that the best man Magnus has met in all these years thinks he’s not good enough for _Magnus._ “Please don’t take something stupid I said because I’m tired and miserable and have it mean more than all the other times I’ve told you that you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Alec presses his lips together. There is something tight around his eyes, but before Magnus can say _I’m sorry,_ or, _I love you,_ or, _Can’t you just cut me a break,_ Alec starts pacing the small expanse of the room again.

“I’m not doing this unless we exhaust every other option,” he repeats. 

“It’s the only way,” says Magnus, grim. “And it’ll work. We already know that just one look is all it’ll take for him to go for you. He’s heartbroken over Camille and trying to forget, so if you’re worried about using him – well, it’ll be mutual.”

“That doesn’t make it any better,” responds Alec, expression twisting into one of distaste. “It’s not like I’m–”

“I’ve got enemies here, Alexander,” interrupts Magnus, the last – and perhaps the most important – of his motives spilling out of him. “The longer we stay, the greater the chances that I’ll be spotted by someone who I’d rather not deal with when I’m defenseless like this.”

His voice cracks at the end of the sentence and he both loves and hates that Alec’s entire face shifts as soon as picks up on it. This is unchartered territory for Magnus, existing without the thrum of his magic flowing through his veins. The fact that he knows it’s locked away inside of him makes it worse – to know that it’s _there_ but unable to reach it – it’s the worst kind of impotency. Somehow, it’s the single fact that Magnus’ thoughts keep returning back to: everything that can go wrong because of his magic’s absence. All the bridges he’s burned, people he’s slighted, people whose envy he invoked. All the people he hadn’t spared a thought for in decades because it just didn’t matter. Magnus was more powerful than them, had more allies, had more clout.

And now, a man out of time, he has none of those three. It’s why Magnus hadn’t begun with this first, unable to admit even to himself how shaken he is. Magnus can fight with his fists as well as any shadowhunter, can kill a man with a branch he has to break off a tree himself, but the fact that he has lost touch with one of his _senses_ – it’s not something he’s fully processed. 

Hopefully, this will be over and done with before he even has to.

“Hey,” says Alec, taking the one step needed to reach Magnus and getting down on a knee so he can be at level with Magnus’ eyes. “You’re Magnus Bane, you’re never defenseless.”

“That’s a sweet sentiment, Alec, but–”

“It’s not just a sentiment,” says Alec loudly, drowning out Magnus’ words. “It’s the truth. You’d be able to take care of yourself if you were deaf or blind or missing an arm.” Releasing a deep, steadying breath, he continues, “But I get it. It’s like my runes. And you know – you know I’m not going to stand around when you’re feeling like this. And that’s... that’s probably why you didn’t start with it.”

“Well,” says Magnus, trying to control his visceral reaction to seeing the resolution that has settled in Alec’s clear, hazel eyes, despite the uncertainty still haunting them. “I suppose you did stop standing.”

A small, startled laugh escapes Alec. 

“Exactly,” he says, and Magnus can’t resist leaning in and kissing his soft, waiting lips. “Magnus, you know I’d do whatever was needed to take that – whatever it is off your magic and get us back home. Even if it’s not something I like. I’m not – I’m not trying to be difficult.”

“I know,” says Magnus quietly. “I know. I’m not too thrilled about the idea of watching you cozy up to someone else.” Even if that someone else is Magnus. It’s just hard to think about it that way when _he_ is Magnus.

“I just want us to try and – I don’t know, break into his place tomorrow morning.” 

“All right,” says Magnus, even though he already knows it won’t work. He did put up the wards himself, and it’s tuned into his magic – not his blood. Hopefully they’ll be able to vanish before the Magnus of this time comes back because the alarms were triggered.

“Or we could put out the word that a shadowhunter is interested in making a similar amulet because they’ve got a warlock friend and see who responds–”

“Knowing our luck,” says Magnus dryly, “it’ll be me who responds. But okay.” He squeezes Alec’s hand, the one that’s been resting on Magnus’ knee. “We can do that too.”

“I know you’re just humouring me,” says Alec, absently caressing his thumb on the sweep of Magnus’ cheek before getting to his feet. “But I appreciate it.”

At those words, a lump forms in Magnus’ throat. What’s he _doing?_ Here is Alexander Lightwood, love of Magnus’ life, struggling with the idea of having to obtain something for a mission using methods that are too intimate for him to be comfortable with. He is questioning his honour about being faithful to Magnus – a tricky concept in this particular situation – and no matter what Magnus says, he will consider this to be the worst, most personal betrayal.

Magnus remembers how angry and devastated Alec had been when he returned to Magnus’ loft after finding out about his parents, the way he kept muttering, “How could he? How can someone do that?” and it had been demonstrating something about Alec Magnus had already known, even back then: that for Alec, some things were non-negotiable, black and white. Some things were absolute. Loving someone meant that you did certain things for them, and you didn’t do certain things _to_ them, and Alec had gripped Magnus’ shoulders and fiercely said, “I will never do that to you, do you understand me? I don’t know how else I’m going to screw this up but – it’s not gonna be that.”

The least that Magnus can do is empathize with that, be humbled by the simple, staggering weight of it.

“I love you,” he says. “And I’m not just humouring you. We’re going to do everything we can before resorting to this, okay? It’s just – I wouldn’t have even suggested this if I could see another way. I still can’t. But we’ll try.”

Smiling in that way that has Magnus’ heart rabbit in his chest, Alec says, “You know, it really is so much better when we’re on the same side on things.”

“I’m always on your side,” says Magnus, kissing him again. 

The relief that floods him is almost divine. They have a plan, thinks Magnus. One more day at most, and then Magnus will have his magic back and they’ll be on their way back home.

-

 

Even though Magnus knew the break-in attempt wouldn’t work, something about the look on Alec’s face has Magnus realizing that at some level, he had been foolishly hoping that it would. For Alec’s sake. 

“Fine,” says Alec, deeply unhappy about this turn of events. “Fine, we’ll go back to the original plan. But I want a couple things first. I don’t – I don’t want this to go too far.”

The amulet that Alec has to steal is something Magnus had made years ago because he was afraid of something like this happening. Not the time-travel part – because there’s no way even he could have predicted this catastrophe – but the part about his magic getting put out of commission. He remembers exactly where he kept it in his London apartment, and it’s not going to be hard for Alec to get it. 

Still, Alec wants a sleeping potion to slip into Magnus’ drink once they’re in private and Magnus directs Alec toward a peddler at the east end of the city who has quality merchandise and is willing to do business with shadowhunters – given a hefty premium on the going price, of course. It’s deeply frustrating having to send Alec to do anything that requires making eye-contact with one of Magnus’ previous acquaintances, but Magnus tells himself that his uselessness has a time limit. 

Alec comes back to their room at the inn with the potion and a few other items they’ll need for this mission. He has a seraph knife for himself, and a pistol and three rounds of bullets for Magnus. The carelessly competent way he sheathes the knife in his boots and lays the rest of the supplies on the bed has something molten hot licking up Magnus’ spine, tightening a coil in his stomach. Somehow, Magnus has the common sense to pull the curtains shut before he backs a startled looking Alec up against the door, whispering a wicked, “Try and be quiet, darling,” and slides to his knees to show Alec just how much Magnus appreciates his thoughtfulness.

There’s still the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening to make it through, however. This time it’s Magnus who deftly walks off with a man’s purse and uses its contents buy them lunch. As it turns out, the man Magnus stole from has impressively deep pockets: Magnus is able to use the remaining coins along Savile Row. First he buys himself another hat – one with a wide enough brim to hide his golden, unglamoured irises. With everything else that’s left, he purchases a deep green cravat for Alec that brings out the colour of his eyes. 

It’s a crisp, sunny day in the beginning of autumn. Despite things being leagues better now in London than they were just ten, fifteen years ago, it’s still dirty and overcrowded and has Magnus looking over his shoulder for unfriendly faces. 

Seeing the genuine wonder in Alec’s gaze as they travel around the city though – it makes up for a lot of it. He finds that his distress takes a backseat when faced with Alec’s interested questions and observations, finds himself laughing at Alec’s disgruntlement the fourth time he steps on something awful because he was too busy looking around. 

“I know that on the whole, history is generally worse than where we get to,” says Alec, afterward, as they walk down Westminster to admire the recently rebuilt palace. “But this isn’t so bad. Pretty different from when we came here back in our time.”

“We’re lucky we didn’t crash land a decade earlier,” says Magnus darkly. “Before Bazalgette got the sewer system sorted out. This is how you know that clown of a warlock isn’t fit to rule over New York, Alec. Can’t even optimize the opportunity to take revenge on me by depositing us in the middle of a cholera outbreak.”

“Unbelievable how incompetent people are,” agrees Alec dryly. Magnus has a suspicion he’s being made fun of. “Well, if I hadn’t been convinced before then this would have settled it. I know who I’m casting my vote for when we get back.”

Despite Magnus’ general annoyance at their predicament, he finds himself smiling.

“The Council is well aware of your bias, Alec.”

“Uh,” says Alec, looking slightly offended. “I’m never biased when it comes to running my Institute and doing what’s best for the city. If the person who’s the best fit for governing the warlock community there happens to be someone I admire and respect outside of my professional responsibilities as well as within them–”

If they were in New York right now and Alec had been talking like this as they walked the path along the Botanical Gardens, Magnus would have kissed him. He’d have done that for two reasons: the first because it’s mortifying, in a way, to hear Alec state these things so frankly. The second because Magnus can’t think of any other way to express what it means to Magnus that Alec thinks this about him even though it’s not the first or second or even the tenth time he’s said it.

As it is, Magnus just clears his throat and says, somewhat inadequately, “Yes, well.” 

That night, Alec holds himself still while Magnus ties the cravat for him, the one he had purchased earlier in the day. 

“This isn’t going to work,” grumbles Alec. “You’re light years out of my league, Magnus, and I don’t have any game. I have zero game. I have _negative_ –”

“You don’t need any _game_ ,” scoffs Magnus. “Only people like Jace need to use tricks to get people interested. You just have to be yourself, Alexander. Trust me, he’s me. He’s going to see that rune on your neck and he won’t be able to resist.”

“The second I start talking–”

“Then he’ll be hooked,” finishes Magnus. “Just talk to him like you talk to me when I’m flirting with you.”

Alec still looks skeptical, but he moves in to other things.

“Won’t he be suspicious that I’m some shadowhunter he’s never heard of before?”

“He’ll figure out you’re a foreigner,” dismisses Magnus. “It’ll add to the intrigue. And if things start to go south – I’ll be there the whole time.” He taps at the enchanted Alec has on his small finger and the matching one Magnus has on his own. Magnus had insisted he get those from the peddler, the one that’ll allow him to listen in on Alec. “And I’ll be more than happy to create a distraction.”

He takes a step back to take a good look at Alec, who looks like an awkward giant in this tiny room. A very awkward, very handsome giant with lovely eyes and an even lovelier face. He is dressed in a dark grey suit and the only splash of colour on him is the cravat folded at the base of his throat. 

He is gazing at Magnus apprehensively, as though Magnus’ assessment would reveal him to be lacking, which is so far from the truth that it’s practically outrageous. Somehow, that outrage translates into Magnus being seized with the urge to kiss him, to not let him leave this room, to keep him right beside Magnus for the rest of time. It’s a tender urge but fraught with an unforeseen desperation. Magnus is powerless when it comes to fulfilling most of those wishes but the first – the first he can do something about.

“He won’t be able to keep his eyes off you,” repeats Magnus. “I’ve seen you every day for months and I can’t look anywhere else right now – for him it’ll be the first time. He’s not going to know what hit him.”

Alec must read the intent on Magnus’ face – or maybe he’s gone even beyond that and is plucking the thoughts and wants right out of Magnus’ mind – because Magnus’ gaze has barely gone to Alec’s mouth before Alec’s drawing him in, kissing Magnus deep. The brazenness of Alec’s desire for him always has Magnus reeling. The way he doesn’t try to hide his want, the way he doesn’t even think of reining it in.

Magnus can’t pretend he’s not addicted to it, the wholeness of Alec’s regard for him. Magnus has loved good and honourable men before, but none as good and honourable as Alec. That Magnus would fall for Alec’s sincerity, his strength and his grace – that was a given. The compromises that he makes, the compromises that he doesn’t. How easily he forgives Magnus and doesn’t have a fraction of that kindness toward himself. That he doesn’t want to cross this line he will be crossing tonight, and will hate himself for it because he is used to doing things he doesn’t want to do.

What was _not_ a given was Alec wanting Magnus with this ferocity despite all the ways Magnus makes his life harder, more complicated. Loving Magnus wholly and completely and not wanting to change a thing about him, even if Alec doesn’t like all those things. How whatever that looks like in his heart translates so seamlessly to the movements of his body. Will he open up to the other Magnus like this? Gasp into his mouth when he’s teased with the edge of Magnus’ teeth, moan without restraint? Cradle his face with those large, callused hands and pull away just so he can look at Magnus’ eyes before going back in again?

“We’ll – we’ll miss the window if we don’t stop,” says Magnus against Alec’s insistent lips. He makes no effort to move away.

“It doesn’t matter,” insists Alec, pulling Magnus’ shirt out of his pants and sliding his hands up Magnus’ stomach, feeling his way over his chest, his shoulders, back down his sides. “It doesn’t matter how long we’re here because we’ll be back at the exact point in time we left. If we miss this window we’ll try again tomorrow. We’ll figure it out. There’ll be – there’ll be another way back.” 

Alec is already halfway to hard in his pants, and he groans when he presses himself against Magnus and finds Magnus in the same position. “God, please–”

There are very few things that can rob the fire that Alec ignites in Magnus’ blood, but the thought that forms fully developed in his mind just then – _there’s no other way back_ – is one of them. It’s with great difficulty that Magnus pulls away, and when he gets a look at Alec – his beautiful eyes, his flushed cheeks and parted mouth – he can feel that it’s the wrong decision, even as his mind tells him no, this has to be done.

“We need that amulet, Alexander,” says Magnus, voice soft. Alec squeezes his eyes shut as he tries to get a hold of himself. 

_There’s no other way,_ Magnus thinks to himself once more when Alec finally takes one step back, then two. The last time Magnus had thought this he turned out to be wrong but – but this time is different. This time Alec’s on his side. At least with his intellect, even if he hasn’t yet convinced his heart. 

Alec takes a deep breath before nodding to himself. 

“Okay,” he says. “I’m sorry, you’re – you’re right. I don’t want you to go on longer without your magic, either. I – I shouldn’t have let anything else take precedence.”

Alec has a look on his face that Magnus thought he would never have to see again. The one where he resigns himself to a lifetime of regret to do what has to be done, only steely resolve powering him forward. It almost makes Magnus say, _wait, maybe we don’t–_

“Okay,” says Alec again. “Okay, let’s go.” 

It’s with a cold and hollow resolution that Magnus watches him leave their small inn room through the window. 

-

 

In the 1880s, Magnus would frequent the Rapture to distract himself from the second to last heartbreak he would suffer at Camille’s hands – in so much as Camille could ever stop breaking Magnus’ heart, because even now just the thought of her fills him with grief, reminds him that he had never received an answer for the _why?_ , the, _what did I do?_ , the, _how could you?_ that had haunted him for a century. Reminds him that he had loved her with everything he had and unless he wants to cut everything inside of him out – a shadow of that love will always be inside of him.

But Camille had only been the latest and most damning symptom of a larger curse that plagued Magnus. The loneliness, bitterness, despair, the lowest points he had reached over the years that made him wonder what the point was, what this road could possibly have waiting for him. It had been an awful journey, to get to a place where he was forced to accept that sometimes there is no reason for these things. That sometimes it’s just life, and some people get dealt a worse hand than others. 

More recently, Magnus has realized he doesn’t care about the whys or the hows – not if all those catastrophic disasters had been along a path that was set to collide with Alec’s. Alec, who has brought Magnus more joy and love than he had ever let himself hope for. Alec, who has made it so clear to Magnus that he is cherished that Magnus still marvels at it: how the weight of Alec’s regard for him leaves no room for doubt. 

Just the thought of him is enough. Magnus knows that if he had to, he would choose to go through it all again if at the end of that journey would be Alec waiting for him in their bed, holding up the blanket for Magnus to crawl into, holding on to Magnus as they fall asleep. 

But the Magnus of this time hasn’t learned all that yet, doesn’t have the promise of Alec Lightwood to look forward to. This Magnus will find comfort and laughter and pleasure from other sources, in hundreds of other lovers – but it will be a temporary reprieve. Eventually he’ll be happy again, time enough of a medicine to heal from this wound. He’ll remember the love he has for his friends, for himself, for the simple blessing of being _alive_. He will be whole enough again to notice all the unexpected blessings in his path, Alec the latest in a line of them.

But for a long, long time, the only constant that Magnus will return to every morning will be an aching, unending misery.

It’s only been a few weeks since the Magnus of this time had had his heart eviscerated. Long enough to make to have gotten over the first stage of dealing with his grief: drinking himself to oblivion every night in the privacy of his lavish, empty home. By now he’ll have learned for the fifth, sixth, tenth time that there’s not enough whiskey in the world to fill that hole inside of him, and will be on the prowl for a physical connection. The rush of endorphins that will overwhelm the crushing sorrow for a few, blissful moments.

And for tonight, that connection will have to be with Alexander. 

Magnus doesn’t manage to stop the bitterness from flooding his mouth.

“Here we go,” he hears Alec’s voice whisper in his ear as the doors open and the Magnus Bane of this century glides in.

He had known that it would be strange to see the man, but Magnus hadn’t realized just how unsettling it is. From where Magnus has made himself obscure in the shadowed corner of the establishment, he has perfect view of the proceedings. This Magnus is cleanly shaven, dressed to the nines, eyes lined with liquid black and dusted with luminous gold. The navy blue overcoat he wears sweeps past his knees, and the golden buttons catch in the lanterns’ light. He doesn’t look like he belongs here in this hideaway for downworlders – Magnus is both narcissistic and self-aware enough to know he looks untouchable, otherworldly, his neck and wrists and fingers adorned with signs of his inarguable wealth and fondness for luxury.

And yet Magnus feels almost embarrassed that Alec will see him like this. Using everything he has available to him to try and cling on to the illusion of impenetrability. 

“My dearest Harridan,” he greets the barkeep brightly. Magnus wonders if it’s obvious to anyone else how empty he sounds under that forced cheer. “Can I beg of you to help me forget about this harrowing day?”

It takes less than the time needed to pour whiskey in his glass for him to notice Alec. Probably because Alec is staring right at him from where he’s standing with a collection of darts cradled in one of his hands. He has shucked off the jacket of his suit, has rolled up the sleeves of his shirt – it’s not the London fashion at all but it’s _Alec_ , and it’s _hot_.

Alec holds this younger Magnus’ gaze for a single second before he looks back to the dartboard and hits a bullseye dead on.

And then four more after that neatly around the first, creating a perfect cross.

“Don’t hold back or anything,” murmurs Magnus into his drink, letting the charm between their connected rings carry his voice to Alec. 

Alec can’t respond without drawing attention to himself, but there’s something of a pleased, smug smile at the edges of his mouth as he walks over to the board and unpins the darts. His strides are quick and graceful, draws attention to his long legs. One of the other patrons of the Rapture – a werewolf, by the looks of her – challenges Alec to a game. He looks surprised, but easily accepts. He turns around, just enough to look at the other Magnus – and when he finds that he has his attention, still, he turns his attention back to the game.

But first he untucks the cravat from around his neck, pushes it thoughtlessly into a pocket. He rolls his shoulders, stretches his neck and puts his rune in display. It’s done almost carelessly, as though it’s nothing more than an instinctive move to flex his muscles. As though it’s not an invitation, a glimpse of what’s waiting if someone wants to take the initiative to unbutton the rest of him.

Magnus’ mouth goes dry at the sight. No doubt his younger self’s does as well, if the way he has gone completely still as he watches Alec with a laser sharp stare.

Alec plays a few more games before he makes his way to the bar and orders a drink. He doesn’t go sit beside the other Magnus, but he doesn’t have to – Magnus’ younger self is already making his way over, his barely touched drink in his hands. He knows exactly who he wants to lose himself in tonight.

“That was an impressive display.” Magnus startles to hear his own voice so clearly in his ears, albeit with a British accent. His counterpart rests his forearm and elbow on the counter. 

“Thanks,” says Alec. Even from a distance, Magnus can see Alec’s eyes flittering almost helplessly across this Magnus’ face. Quietly, Magnus murmurs into his hand, _ask him if he plays._ “Do you play?”

“Not as proficiently as you,” lies Magnus’ younger self, and despite knowing this would be the answer, Magnus has to embarrassedly look away from Alec’s raised eyebrows. “You are an American?”

“Visiting from New York,” replies Alec. “And the Rapture has a reputation, even across the Atlantic. I thought I’d swing by.”

“That is quite the journey to visit a simple drinking establishment.”

Not looking away from Magnus’ face, Alec says, “It was worth the trip, I think.”

“Oh?” says Magnus. “Have you found this place to be pleasing?”

“This place ended up having you,” says Alec. “So yes.” He says it simply, factually, without hesitation. Magnus sees his younger self’s eyes widen a fraction, the way he falters just a little. When Magnus had said, “be yourself,” this is exactly what he had meant. He’d known that it would work, can see the way his younger self leans closer perhaps without even realizing it. Magnus knows exactly what his younger self is looking at, drawn to the intensity of Alec’s gaze.

He doesn’t even know how lucky he has it. Magnus watches with a strange, inexplicable envy as his younger self puts down his drink so he can sit down at one of the barstools, knees knocking into Alec’s. The way he brazenly touches Alec’s wrist to admire his ring and Alec’s reaction is to look down and not-quite hide his exquisite smile instead of yanking his arm away. 

How over the course of the next fifteen minutes he has the confidence to murmur, “You have been watching me from the moment I stepped inside.”

How he has the luxury to hear Alexander respond, “Yes,” voice low and rough.

“Why?”

“Because I wanted you to look back.”

And here, Magnus has to knock back the rest of his drink. Of course, since it’s a bar run by warlocks, Magnus’ glass refills itself and he can feel the pouch of coins in his pockets grow incrementally lighter. Things are going so smoothly that Magnus hasn’t had to quickly whisper any helpful hints to Alec’s ear after the first minute. Magnus tries to remember all the reasons it’s a terrible idea to walk over there and lay his claim on Alec’s mouth and body so thoroughly that every patron in this establishment will never forget who this man belongs to.

Magnus shouldn’t have come here. He shouldn’t have thought he’d be able to witness this and not go mad, have Alec look at someone else and say all the things that no other being but Magnus has had whispered into his ear, pressed against his mouth. 

Against his will, Magnus’ mind fast-forwards to an hour from now – to five minutes from now, Magnus doesn’t have any illusions for how long it’ll take to seal this deal – and he realizes that if Alec doesn’t think to take the ring off, then Magnus has to listen to them when they retire to the apartment. Because there’s no way Magnus would take off his own, even if it makes him sick to think about it. 

Magnus hears the hitch of breath from his younger self. 

“There’s something about you, shadowhunter,” he says. Something in his voice – he probably doesn’t even realize that he’s lost this. One conversation and he’s already caught in Alec’s orbit, his entire body trying to find its balance when faced with the gravity of Alec’s pull. “You are not like any of the others of your kind I have had the misfortune to cross paths with.”

Alec’s not. Alec’s not like anyone Magnus has ever met, or will ever meet. Not just among shadowhunters, but among any creature with a soul, any living being. And Magnus’ younger self already seems to have an inkling of it, an awareness, the singularity of the man he’ll have in his arms tonight. 

“I’ll count on your goodwill to keep my path clear of them.”

“A renegade from the Clave?” Magnus sounds intrigued, taking Alec’s awkward silence as confirmation. “Because of your openness with your inclinations?”

A natural conclusion to come to – but upon hearing it, something minutely shifts in Alec’s expression. 

It’s enough to make Magnus snap out of the rage that’s been building inside of him. All this time Alec has been looking at Magnus’ younger self with unconcealed want, making it clear he’s only playing this game for as long as Magnus wants to. But now there’s something else. Alexander is, without meaning to, closing himself off. After all, remembers Magnus, hadn’t this been Alec’s fear once upon a time? That to embrace himself will mean losing everything he holds dear to him?

His younger self notices the change in Alec as well. Without conscious thought, Magnus is halfway to standing up, suddenly nothing more important than getting Alec away from this Magnus who doesn’t know him, doesn’t understand him.

Who knows what else he’ll say or do that Alec will be affected by? Things he may be hurt by, that he’ll forever associate with Magnus? That would be unacceptable. No, Magnus has to–

“You do not have to answer that,” says Magnus’ younger self immediately, quietly. He reaches for Alec’s hand, and seems to realize the magnitude of his folly when for the first time all night, Alec tenses under his touch. 

“That was – not something that a gentleman should have asked. Especially one who has only been your acquaintance you for such a short time.”

“You couldn’t have known,” says Alec, shaking himself out of it. “It’s fine.”

“It really is not.” The frown is clear in his voice.

There is a moment for which Alec just looks at the Magnus in front of him, something tentative in his gaze.

Finally he clears his throat and says, “Then maybe – maybe you should get to know me longer.”

This is the third time tonight that Alec has been so bold about his intentions, but it’s that slip up – the stutter, the tell that it isn’t just _desire_ that this Magnus invokes in him but also a vulnerability – that drives it home for Magnus’ counterpart of this time. The way the promise returns between them – their earlier misstep might as well have never happened.

“I have an apartment that is just a short walk away. It is much more private if you are hoping to avoid any unpleasant run-ins with your kind.” 

Magnus’ younger self is touching the shell of his ear. And that more than anything else makes Magnus realize that it’s done. 

-

 

Because Alec has basic sense of propriety – or perhaps because he understands Magnus’ self-destructive tendencies better than Magnus could’ve predicted – he takes off his ring. The last thing Magnus hears is his younger self’s voice murmuring, “Are you not getting tired of simply looking, Alexander?”

Magnus stays at the Rapture until all the coins in his stolen purse vanish. 

He makes it back to the inn with an eerily blank mind. With every step he takes, Magnus is vividly aware that at this very moment, Alec is with his counterpart – and if this younger Magnus has any common sense, he would have had Alec pressed up against the door to his apartment the second it had closed. He’d already have his mouth on the hammering of Alec’s pulse, tasting his skin through the ink of his rune.

Magnus’ hands shake from the knowledge that this is but one of an infinite possibilities. That at this very moment in time and space, someone else knows exactly how Alec sounds when he’s being kissed and touched. The way he says, _God, you’re beautiful._ The delight in his eyes when he sees the gold take over Magnus’ own. It’s – it’s too much. Magnus feels his blood running hot, stifling his ability to form rational thought. He can’t dwell on it. If he does he’s going to end up marching back over to the London apartment and cause mayhem, magic be damned.

Instead he tries to prepare for what they’ll need to do once Alec brings back the amulet and restores Magnus’ power – they’ll need a place big enough to open a portal. Magnus will need to go back and take the memories of tonight from his younger self, so that nothing is changed in his path. So that the real first time he meets the man who will turn out to be the love of his life, he’ll be drawn to the easy way he flips the seraph knife in his hands. The way he smiles at Magnus as though he can’t stop himself, can’t contain it.

It takes almost two hours for Alec to make it back. 

He comes in through the window. Magnus, who had been lying listlessly on the single bed and staring at the ceiling – trying futilely to not think – sits up. Alec looks like a mess – his hair is tousled, his mouth red, the buttons of his waistcoat not done quite right. His jacket, which had been thrown over a single shoulder, falls to the floor. 

There’s a faint red mark on the line of his jaw, a darker one on his neck. 

Wordlessly, they stare at each other until Alec swallows and reaches into his pocket.

“Here,” he says hoarsely before tossing a familiar silver necklace Magnus’ way. Magnus doesn’t break Alec’s gaze as he snags it from the air in front of him. “I got it.”

Magnus curls his hand around the locket, the amulet holding the spell to unlock his magic. Already he feels the steady thrum of it, warm against his palm. 

Looking weary and uncertain, Alec starts, “Magnus–”

 _“Finite,”_ interrupts Magnus, heart suddenly pounding his chest. 

The curse-breaking effect of the single word is instantaneous: he can physically feel the lock around his magic shatter, that exhilarating wave of it unspooling in his stomach and rapidly expanding outward. All at once, the world is saturated in colour again, his senses rebalanced. Blue flames spill out of him, engulf him, burns away that awful, anxious vulnerability that had been plaguing him all day. It cocoons them in the inn room, blocks out the rest of the world from seeing, listening to something that is only Magnus and Alec’s to see and listen to. 

It follows him as he moves toward Alec, his limbs and magic working in tandem until Alec is pressed against the wall. 

Alec holds himself still as Magnus reaches to touch the mark on his neck with one hand. The other goes to rest on Alec’s chest. From the light of the glowing blue fire he emits, Magnus can see the faint indent of teeth.

“Magnus,” repeats Alec. “I–”

Magnus leans in and bites down on the bruise his counterpart left behind. 

The gasp is wrenched out of Alec from deep within his chest and he grips Magnus’ shoulders, as though to brace himself, as though his knees have suddenly gone weak. He doesn’t move as Magnus sucks at that soft skin of his neck, doesn’t complain that Magnus spends barely any time soothing the sting of it with his tongue and only groans, _fuck, Magnus._ When Magnus pulls at his hair, he cranes his neck to give Magnus better access. When the hand Magnus had on his chest starts sliding down, Alec’s legs instinctively part just that much more and creates the perfect space for Magnus to be able to take a hold of Alec’s growing hardness.

When Magnus pulls away, it’s only to inspect that no sign of the original mark is left. It’s only when he moves on to Alec’s face that he sees that Alec’s looking at him with the kind of naked desire that lights all of Magnus on fire – but he’s not acting on it as he normally would. He’s watching Magnus with his blown pupils, breathing in shallow pants. 

“Where else?” asks Magnus, voice a low murmur. He runs a hand through Alec’s soft hair, traces the line of his jaw with a finger. Alec closes his eyes, lets his head tilt back against the wall. “Where else did he touch you?”

Alec doesn’t answer.

Magnus repeats, “Where else, Alexander?”

When again Alec doesn’t reply, Magnus decides he can find the answers out on his own. He moves to touch Alec’s mouth. “Did he kiss you?”

He doesn’t wait to hear Alec’s response because he already knows: only a fool would resist, and Magnus’ younger self may be a great many things but he is not a fool, not in this way. 

And so Magnus takes Alec’s lips in between his own, pulling him into a kiss that will lay waste to the memory of every other kiss Alec has ever had. He claims Alec’s mouth the way he’s been aching to since Alec had caught the eye of his counterpart from this time – a kiss that’ll make sure Alec never forgets who knows him best and exactly how he ticks, knows each and every way there is to make him lose control and ignite that wanton desire. 

Alec hauls him close, arms wrapping around Magnus, clutching at his back and helplessly grinding into him. The heat of Alec’s mouth is intoxicating, and there’s a hint of whiskey lingering on Alec’s tongue. Magnus knows that taste intimately, knows it must have been him who had offered it to Alec. Unbidden, Magnus’ mind conjures up an image of his counterpart holding the glass to Alec’s lips, tilting it into his mouth. His gold dusted eyes watching the pull of Alec’s throat as he swallows.

Alec hisses when Magnus nips his mouth a little too hard but he doesn’t break away. He keeps kissing Magnus – kisses him and kisses him, as though the voracious need to possess that is ravaging Magnus’ body is present inside of Alec as well because with Alec it’s never a matter of having a kiss _returned_. It doesn’t matter if it’s Magnus initiating – it always ends with Alec losing himself in his want.

And he wants Magnus. Magnus never wants Alec to want anyone else except him, as he is, at any given moment.

“Tell me,” says Magnus, pressing the words into Alec’s mouth. “Tell me what happened.” He unbuttons Alec’s waistcoat, loses his patience when he realizes he still has Alec’s shirt to get through before he can touch his skin. His magic responds without Magnus’ conscious will to turn every patch of fabric Magnus’ hands come in touch with into ash that can be blown off of him.

“Magnus,” groans Alec when Magnus runs his hands along the miles and miles of skin suddenly accessible to him. He scratches the hair on Alec’s chest, the fluttering muscles of his stomach. “Why do you keep–”

Magnus finally, finally pulls away, mouth buzzing. He still feels the phantom touch of Alec’s lips on his own as he looks at Alec’s unexpectedly pleading, desperate expression. 

“Why do you keep asking me about what happened?”

“Because you’re mine.” It’s the truth in its simplest form, at the root of this – this spell that’s overtaken Magnus, a spell that could destroy him more thoroughly than the curse that robbed him of his magic. “And nobody else’s. I fought for you and you chose me. No one else is supposed to have you – but someone did. I all but pushed you into his arms. So I want to know.” 

The expression on Alec’s face doesn’t change. Magnus starts again:

“You left the Rapture and he couldn’t keep his eyes off you.” Magnus understands that feeling. He’s experiencing it at this exact moment, unable to think of a single sight that is more stunning than the way Alec looks right now. “Did he kiss you in the alley?”

Alec closes his eyes when Magnus goes back to kissing his neck, holds him firmly against the wall. 

“No,” he says, voice rough. Even as he gives in, Magnus feels Alec go tense all over.

“Of course,” murmurs Magnus. Of course he wouldn’t, because then he wouldn’t be able to stop. He strokes Alec’s cock just the way he likes it, feels it grow heavier, fill up in his hand. “He waited until you got back to the apartment. The second you stepped inside he would’ve offered you a drink–”

“Maybe he would have,” says Alec, biting his lower lip when Magnus unbuttons his pants and lets it pool at Alec’s ankles. He’d forgotten that Alec hadn’t been wearing any underwear, a purchase the never made in this time. He takes Alec in his hand just as Alec says, “But he never got the chance. I kissed him as soon as he shut the door.”

Magnus stills at the whispered admission, unable to put a name to the feeling that wracks him. He had to risk public disgrace to get that first, earth shattering kiss from Alec. He had to be braver than heroes, pretend his heart was made of indestructible steel instead of its reality of brittle glass. His younger self had to – all he had to was exist. Alexander did all the work. For him there was never any hesitation, any doubt. He didn’t question that Alec wanted him, and Alec didn’t have any reservations in doing what he had to do – what he wanted to do. 

Alec didn’t have to draw pull out his unparalleled, reckless brand of courage to kiss this Magnus. Alec didn’t look at him the way he is looking at Magnus now, as though the right word from Magnus would be enough to destroy him.

“You kissed him,” repeats Magnus, heart constricting. “Couldn’t even wait for the drink.”

“No,” says Alec, and this is when that terrible uncertainty disappears from Alec’s gaze to be replaced with resolve. He’s glaring at Magnus now, and the fire in his eyes has Magnus’ breath catch in his throat. “No, I couldn’t wait. Because I knew why I was there, and I wasn’t – I wasn’t going to leave you without your magic for even a second longer than you had to be. So I kissed him. And when he ended up kissing me like you do – I got on my knees and sucked him until he was ready to fuck me.”

And then he’s grabbing onto Magnus and pulling him into a searing kiss. He kicks off his boots and steps away from his discarded pants, tumbling the two of them into the flimsy bed. 

_He kissed me like you do._

_I sucked him off until he wanted to fuck me._

“You did all that for me, then,” says Magnus, straddling Alec as he continues on his mission to reclaim Alec’s mouth. Alec wraps his long legs around Magnus and gives back as good as he gets, rutting his bare cock into the harsh cotton of Magnus’ pants with no finesse and leaving smears all over it. “Martyred yourself for me–”

“He’s you and he’s beautiful,” growls Alec. “I hated myself because it felt so good and it was – it was easy. It was so easy to blow your fucking mind because you already taught me, I knew exactly what I had to do, what he – you – what you wanted–”

If Magnus had any control over himself right now, he’d transform this bed into something lavish and decadent but all rational thought escapes him. All that matters is getting Alec under him, to catalogue and eradicate any mark of this other Magnus from Alec’s body. The marks Alec willingly took on from another man’s hands when Magnus’ was readily available. A man who Alec pleasured in all the ways Magnus had shown him, a man that Alec had pursued to get Magnus his magic back so they can go home. 

Too many things are clashing inside of Magnus right now. He doesn’t want to think. He just wants Alec, he wants– 

“Get on your knees,” commands Magnus, and his voice is hoarse. Alec doesn’t respond, he just – he just fucking _does it_ , scrambles out from underneath Magnus and twists around until he’s on all fours, Magnus kneeling behind him. He is temptation incarnate like this as he is in any other form, and Magnus is the only person who is supposed to see him like this.

And he still is – but he isn’t. 

The broad expanse of Alec’s back is smooth, unmarred by anything except his runes and the smattering of white scars from all the wounds he’s collected over the years that couldn’t heal from a simple iratze. Magnus runs his hands over the canvas of his skin, feels Alec trembling under his palms. 

Magnus still has the remnants of scratches on either side of his spine from three nights ago. Does the Magnus of this time have that as well? Souvenirs of Alec’s passion he will carry with him for the coming days?

“Do it.” Alec sounds like he’s begging for it. “Fuck me – fuck him out of me.”

There’s nothing Magnus wants to do more, but hearing it straight from Alec’s mouth–

“Is this how he took you?” Magnus drapes himself over Alec, presses his mouth to the nape of Alec’s neck. From how he’s kneeling, Magnus’ straining cock is pressed up against Alec’s ass. The perspiration on his back seeps into Magnus’ shirt.

“No,” says Alec as Magnus makes his way down Alec’s spine. He leaves wet kisses along the path, drags his nails across Alec’s sides as he moves.

“No?” Magnus nips at Alec’s cheek when he gets to it, parts them. “He didn’t get to see you like this? Spread you apart like this?”

“No,” repeats Alec, shuddering at the feel of Magnus’ breath against him. It’s only now that Magnus processes that Alec is bared to Magnus in the most intimate way while Magnus doesn’t even have his pants off. The realization shouldn’t make Magnus even more wracked with arousal, shouldn’t make him muffle a moan against Alec’s hip – but Christ, it does, it _does_ , especially with the confirmation that not even his younger self has seen Alec like this. That Alec hadn’t laid himself out, open for the taking.

But Alec had laid himself in other ways. Magnus sees this as he strokes down the path of muscles leading to Alec’s entrance, still loose from taking in his counterpart. Alec’s breathing grows shallow when Magnus doesn’t say anything, do anything. _How did he take you?_ Magnus wants to ask, but what comes out of his mouth instead is:

“He cleaned you up.”

Alec lets out a depraved, strangled sound at the pleasure that wracks his body when Magnus goes in and licks slowly, indolently, over his hole. He does it again and again, and by the time Magnus stops playing around and starts to fuck into Alec with his tongue, Alec has given up on his wrists and has fallen on his forearms. 

His thighs are trembling from keeping his ass up for Magnus. Magnus appreciates the effort. He barely has to hold Alec open, tongue sliding into him so easily that it’s indecent. He’s never eaten Alec out when his opening’s so sensitive, right after he’s been fucked – but by every angel and demon and higher being ruling over them, Magnus doesn’t want this to be the only time he draws these wrecked noises out of Alec, the way he can’t even say Magnus’ name because he keeps mumbling, _stop, God, don’t stop._

“Magnus,” says Alec burying his face in the mattress. His fingers clench tight around the sheets. “Magnus, enough, just – just fuck me–”

“I _am_ , my darling.” Magnus’ voice is hoarse as he pulls away. His rings have left imprints on Alec’s ass from where he’s been gripping them, and he wipes his chin and mouth on Alec’s cheek, right above the marks. He feels Alec’s muscles clench from the burn of his beard against his skin. 

“With your cock,” says Alec, crying out a little when Magnus conjures up slick on two of his fingers to test Alec’s opening. “I’m ready, just get your dick out of your pants.” Alec shifts so he can sloppily, frantically wet a palm with his tongue and reach for his own hard and neglected length, moaning when he gets his hand around it. “Ah, Magnus–”

Magnus starts to move his fingers in shallow, circling thrusts, letting his rings bring them to a natural stop. “You’re thinking about me, aren’t you, Alexander?”

“Of course I am,” croaks Alec, sounding wounded. “How could you – of course I am–”

The third finger is just as easy. Alec really _is_ ready to take Magnus’ cock. Why wouldn’t he be, when it’s barely been an hour since he’s last had it?

Alec may have known all the ways to please Magnus’ younger self, but the reverse isn’t true. No one but Magnus knows how to get Alec like this, bring him to the edge with just his tongue and fingers, have him writhing and begging. 

“Say it,” says Magnus, demanding, beseeching. He finally, finally releases his cock, drags the head of it along the same path his mouth had taken just moments earlier. He’s almost delirious as he fists himself, gets himself slicked up to slide into Alec. “Say you’re mine, Alexander.”

“I’m yours.” Alec says this like a prayer, like an oath. He gets himself back up so his weight is once more on his wrists, his hands and knees, and he cranes his head back to look at Magnus with his vibrant eyes. 

“I’m yours, Magnus,” he says, voice rough. “I’ve never been anyone else’s. I’m never going to _be_ anyone else’s.” 

“Good,” he murmurs, pushing himself in to the excruciating heat waiting for him. Alec chokes out a gasp, holds himself unnaturally still until Magnus is deep inside of him. “Because I wouldn’t be able to bear it if you were.”

“Magnus,” says Alec, the two syllables scraped out of his throat. His head bows down as Magnus rocks his hips into him, the slap of his pelvis on Alec’s ass cracking through the room. It’s fast and desperate from the get go, no languorous build up to get Alec used to it, break him in. 

Alec has already been broken in tonight.

“You–” starts Magnus, trying to get enough air in into his lungs to form words. “You never finished telling me.” 

“Finished telling you _what?_ ” Alec lets out a noise that can only be called a whine when Magnus slows down to adjust his angle. “ _Magnus._ ”

“How he fucked you,” says Magnus, and oh, that’s it – Magnus knows exactly when he starts driving into that spot inside of Alec. All of Alec unravels, unwinds, and any remnants of his control vanishes.

For a moment, Alec doesn’t answer, the only sounds out of him are unintelligible words spilling from his lips as Magnus drives into him again and again. 

And then in between one heaving breath and the next, Alec rasps out, “I asked him if he wanted to come inside of me.” Magnus groans, Alec’s words going straight to his dick, tightening his balls. He can imagine it perfectly – how frank Alec would be, looking up at Magnus from his knees. 

“You said yes,” says Alec, as though there was a chance that the answer was ever going to be anything different. Each word out of Alec sounds more laboured than the last. “So I dragged him to the ground. I rode his fingers first, and then I – and then I rode his cock.”

Magnus’ mouth feels dry. He can’t think. He doesn’t even know why he’s trying to think, not when he can feel Alec’s smooth internal muscles fluttering around him. Can’t get the image of Alec straining his body, working himself around Magnus’ cock to bring him into completion. “How did it feel?” 

All of Alec is trembling. 

“It was amazing,” he says, repeating his words from before. He grunts when Magnus hold on his hips tighten in response, when his thrusts into Alec become even harsher, even more frantic. “Because to me, he was you.”

“And?” asks Magnus, entranced by the sweat that’s pooling at the dip of Alec’s spine.

“And – and it was fucking awful,” pants Alec. “Because to him – to you – I wasn’t– I wasn’t– oh, fuck, _fuck_ , Magnus–”

Alec’s words devolve into a series of incomprehensible sounds. Magnus barely has it together, but he needs to know, he _needs to–_ “You weren’t what? You weren’t what, Alexander?”

“I wasn’t anyone,” gasps Alec, back arching as Magnus’ want of his body becomes more and more and more demanding. “I was – I was just some shadowhunter–”

“No,” interrupts Magnus, and suddenly it’s imperative to see Alec’s face. To look at Alec’s eyes and erase the absurd notion that he is anything less than exceptional and singularly _wanted_ to any Magnus that has crossed paths with him in any universe, at any time.

Alec makes a protesting sound when Magnus pulls out of him, looks disoriented when he ends up sprawled on his back. His cock is red and hard and leaking, curving up toward his stomach and just a touch away from shooting off.

“What,” he starts, breathless. He stares up at Magnus kneeling between his legs. “What’re you doing?” 

“You’re not just some _anything_ ,” says Magnus ferociously, pulling his shirt up from above his neck and discarding it. Alec doesn’t wait a single second before he’s got his hands on Magnus’ chest, his stomach, palming his back and drawing him into a kiss so ravenous it’s as though he’s been hungering for Magnus’ mouth the entire time he’s not been in reach of it.

When Magnus pulls back, Alec’s eyes are hazy and his chest is rising and falling in a rapid rhythm. 

“You’re not just some shadowhunter Magnus Bane picked up at a bar,” he repeats, and the sound of Alec’s breathing is suddenly harsher, more prominent. Magnus can’t imagine going through this – to have Alec look at him and want nothing more than an anonymous fuck, to only want him in order to forget someone else that’s got an iron grip on his heart. “You’re the love of his life, even if he doesn’t know it yet.”

“Magnus,” says Alec, squeezing his eyes shut. His hair is damp, sweat gathered on his hairline, dripping down the side of his face. He draws his legs up, presses his heels to Magnus’ back in insistence. “I don’t – I just want you back inside me.”

Any desire of Alec’s is Magnus’ duty to fulfill. 

There’s something heady and electric about being able to look at Alec’s face while fucking him, the way his eyes flutter in and out of Magnus’ sight, the way the flush on his cheeks go all the way down to his chest. 

How his lips are parted the whole time, slick and red from Magnus’ kisses. How the rhythm of his wrists gets more and more disharmonic, the closer he gets to bringing himself to completion. The mark his counterpart left behind on Alec’s collarbone, the size of a nickel and impossible for Magnus to miss from a galaxy away.

“God, Magnus,” says Alec, head falling back in ecstasy. “I’m almost there – you feel so, so good – don’t stop, don’t–”

But at Alec’s words, Magnus finds the building urgency in his body snapping, only to be overtaken with an all-encompassing bliss. His hips stutter to a stop as he spends himself and Alec groans, overcome, when he feels Magnus spill hot inside of him. Magnus watches dazedly as Alec squeezes his balls, pulls at his length with such fervour that it must be more pain than pleasure – but then he tenses, body gone so taut so quickly that he almost expels Magnus as he comes with a silent gasp, streaking white across his chest and chin.

In the aftermath, Magnus crawls over Alec and takes his tempting mouth in one more kiss. Alec kisses back sweetly, generously. There is a bone deep exhaustion in Alec’s eyes, behind the satiated contentment.

Magnus still had his pants crumpled at his knees. He finally has the mind to banish them before he clears the come and sweat from their bodies, making it easy to lie alongside him. He can’t stop touching Alec, still, feeling a rush of satisfaction as he takes inventory of the frankly juvenile marks of ownership he has littered all along Alec’s body.

A rush of satisfaction followed by complete disbelief. Not over the things he did, but – the things he said. Magnus tries his best to show Alec how much he loves him daily, with both words and actions, how he’s literally the life force inside of Magnus, some days – but Alec was never supposed to know any of these other things. These uglier things. How frightened Magnus is of driving him away into someone else’s arms, how desperate he is to be special to Alec, to be wanted and loved in a way Alec would never want or love anyone else. As though he has a right to it.

Alec looks back at him, silent and considering, hand resting warm and heavy on Magnus’ hip. He stays wordless for so long that Magnus eventually has to clear his throat and say, “Was that – was that too much?”

Alec shakes his head. 

“It was great,” he reassures. “It was – it was really hot. I guess I was hoping that what I had to do – that it didn’t have to hurt you too. But that was just stupid.” He sighs. “I’m sorry, Magnus.”

“ _You_ didn’t hurt me,” says Magnus sharply, needing Alec to understand this. 

Huffing in a way that makes it obvious that he doesn’t agree, Alec replies, “I’m still sorry. This was messed up. You shouldn’t have had to feel – how you did.”

Something’s not right. How Magnus had felt is too complex for words in some ways and laughably simple in others. If this is how he felt seeing Alec on a mission, one where it was _literally_ Magnus he had to touch, where he didn’t even want to do it, where he was coming back to Magnus at the end of the night cradling Magnus’ lost magic in his hands – Magnus can’t imagine what he’d do in a scenario where even one of those variables were different. 

What Magnus felt was different from the grief that grips him from time to time at the thought that one day he will lose Alec. It had been a particular wretchedness, to think of Alec not being lost from the world at large but just from Magnus.

“Alec, what’s wrong?”

As Magnus’ magic settles, the dim glow of his magic fades and leaves the room swathed in darkness. Magnus’ demon eyes lets him see everything perfectly, however, and what he sees is weariness. Tension.

“I messed up, Magnus,” he says quietly. “I messed up with him. With you.”

“What d’you mean?”

“He knew something wasn’t right,” says Alec. “After we – after we finished, and I slipped the potion into the whiskey I poured for him, he asked what I wanted.” He swallows, as though there is a lump in his throat that can stop his words from coming out. “Because the way I was looking at him – he said that’s not how a man looks at someone he wants just for the night.”

Something falters to a stop in Magus’ chest. “Alexander...”

Alec turns away from Magnus, rolls onto his back.

“He said he wasn’t done with me for the night but asked if he could see me tomorrow,” says Alec, looking up at the ceiling. “I told him he could see me every morning for as long as he liked.” He closes his eyes, as though to brace himself. “Then he took the spiked drink and passed out. And I stole the amulet, put him to bed, and left.”

Alec sounds disgusted with himself. He sounds like he is in pain. The recognition of it makes everything else inside of Magnus take a backseat and he reaches instinctively for Alec’s shaking hands. 

Alec whispers, “You have to make him forget. I know that was the plan from the start, but – you _have to_ , Magnus. And you have to do it before he wakes up and finds me gone. I can barely handle how much I hate myself right now and I can’t – I can’t stand the thought of you hating me, too. Of letting you down. Any version of you.”

“No version of me is capable of hating you.” How can Alec not know one of the guiding truths of Magnus’ universe? “If anything, he’s already halfway in love with you.”

“That makes it worse, Magnus,” says Alec, a hitch in his words. “That makes everything that happened even worse. Because I know that if I had to, if you ever needed me to, I’d do it again.”

Magnus is at a loss. 

“I love you,” he says, an inadequate summary of everything he feels for Alec right now. “And I’m telling you right now, as the Magnus that knows what you did and why you did it – thank you, for doing this for us. It makes me love you more, not less, do you understand?”

He had known that this would be difficult for them both, but the way Alec holds himself very still and hasn’t looked at Magnus since his whispered confession – this is going to haunt Alec in a way that Magnus can’t quite comprehend. Unbidden, he remembers Alec’s words from last night: _I can’t do that to you._

And then the more resolute: _I’ll do whatever I have to to get you home. Nothing else will take precedence._

For a while, Alec just breathes. Magnus hopes that it’s not just his imagination that with every exhale, Alec seems to lose some of the silent torment that’s been wrapped around him all night. 

Finally, with great effort, he sits up. 

Wordlessly, Magnus joins him. “Alexander?”

“That sleeping potion isn’t going to last that much longer,” says Alec, voice gruff. “How’re you feeling? Magic settled in okay?” 

Magnus nods, helpless, and Alec goes, “Then let’s get those memories and go back home.”

-  
-

 

After a few weeks too many of staring at the small glass bottle holding a forgotten night, Magnus asks Alec if he can have his younger self’s memories back.

“They’re yours,” says Alec, looking confused at the request. “You don’t have to ask me for permission.”

“But I am,” insists Magnus. It would take more than magic for Magnus to forget the look on Alec’s face when he had told Magnus to make sure his younger self doesn’t remember the promises Alec had made, that would need him to wait for a hundred and thirty years to collect them from Alec. 

How the weight hadn’t quite left Alec’s shoulders until they had stepped back into Magnus’ London apartment, and found the Magnus of that time soundly passed out in bed. The visible relief in Alec had been staggering in its profundity – relief that his counterpart hadn’t woken to find Alec had left him. Alec had carded his fingers through this younger Magnus’ hair as Magnus carefully pulled out the night’s events from his mind.

Alec had kissed the sleeping Magnus’ forehead, had whispered, “I’ll be beside you every morning for the rest of my life,” before taking Magnus’ hand and stepping through the special portal that brought them back home.

Magnus has to swallow against his suddenly dry throat.

“Then... go ahead,” says Alec. “If you’re sure it won’t be weird for you.”

“I think it’ll help make it less weird for me,” admits Magnus. It’s something that’s been lingering at the back of his mind, a spectre following him around his loft back in Brooklyn. That feeling of being disconnected from his counterpart, from Alec – all of that is because as far as Magnus is concerned, it happened to someone else.

“Okay,” says Alec readily. “Do you – do you want me here with you?”

“Please,” says Magnus, and the request feels as though it is asking for too much even though Magnus knows there is nothing he could ask of Alec that would be too much for him to try and fulfill. “If you don’t mind, I want you here.”

When Alec nods, a little apprehensive, Magnus summons the small bottle holding his memories to where the two of them are sitting on the sofa.

Memories in their corporeal form like this have the appearance of the sentiment contained within them. The night Magnus has forgotten – has stolen from the mind of his younger self – sits in its glass cage as a glowing ball of golden light. Magnus has been hungry to know the truth that this small star holds inside of it, what could possibly be this beautiful and cherished when it’s about a man he would’ve known for a few hours in the throes of one of the worst times of his life.

Magnus takes a deep breath and holds on to Alec’s hand as he lets himself remember the moment the handsome, aloof shadowhunter at the Rapture catches his eye. The strange way he speaks. The way he looks at Magnus as though he’s never seen anything else worth looking at.

“Are you not getting tired of simply looking, Alexander?” he asks, because Magnus is certainly getting impatient, wants nothing more than this man’s obscenely large hands to hold him in place, for him to pleasure Magnus with his delectable mouth.

Magnus barely has the sentence out of his mouth before Alexander crowds him up against the door. He cradles Magnus’ face in his hands. He says, very quietly, “Are you sure you want me?”

“By all the gods I do not believe in,” starts Magnus, “ye–”

And Alexander kisses him. It is startlingly sweet – for just a moment – and then it is with a hunger and want so vast that Magnus would have to be dead to not feel something kindle inside of him. 

This man is the howling winds of a summer storm. Faced with his ferocity, Magnus cannot think of anything else – cannot remember the ashes residing where his heart should be, the bitterness in his soul. It is impossible to survive such passion unless Magnus meets it with his own. 

And so Magnus does. 

“Do you truly think me so desirable, shadowhunter?” he asks, letting tendrils of his magic unbutton Alexander’s waistcoat and the crisp white shirt he favours underneath.

“You know the answer to that.” 

“I do,” says Magnus, astonished, because he himself cannot deny this truth. He would not have been able to deny it, even if the wards for ill intent protecting his apartment had gone off the second Alexander had stepped inside. “But I do not understand.”

“What’s there to understand except that I want you?” asks Alexander breathlessly, and this is true enough. Magnus finds that he has more intriguing thoughts to fill his mind with, earlier questions trailing off with every inch of skin revealed as he peels Alexander’s clothes off.

His body is littered with marks of a nephilim warrior. It has been a very long time since Magnus has bedded one of Alexander’s kind, and that had been a play of power for both of them. Not – not whatever delirious fantasy this is, with Alexander making the most entrancing sounds as Magnus licks the salt off the tantalizing rune on his neck.

And then Alexander asks him, “Do you want to fuck my mouth, Magnus?” 

Magnus gasps, the crude language not something he has often heard fall from the mouths of those with angel blood. But the words go straight to his member, and Alexander is an enigma that Magnus is already enthralled in – one who Magnus knows has all sorts of wicked talents waiting at the tip of his tongue. 

So he rasps, “Yes – yes, I want to fuck your mouth, angel.”

The unintentional endearment changes something in Alexander. It is not like before at the Rapture, when Magnus’ careless words had almost pushed this man away. No, this change is something that steals the air from Magnus’ lungs: the way Alexander looks at him grows sweet with tenderness. 

And that moment appears to set the tone as they indulge in each other’s bodies. Well, as Alexander indulges _Magnus’_ body. There are these noises that he makes, the way he looks up at Magnus through the lashes of his impossible eyes. He presses kisses along Magnus’ shaft, teases Magnus with his teeth, rubs soft circles with his thumbs on Magnus’ hipbones as he takes Magnus’ cock deep in his throat, more talented than a back alley whore. 

This man knows exactly what to do to please Magnus, and he does not hold back the slightest. He has no shame in his want of Magnus, and it is something that Magnus cannot comprehend. When he has Magnus flush against the floor, he first asks for Magnus’ fingers and kisses the wet tips of them. After, when he moves to sit on Magnus’ cock, his head is thrown back in pleasure and he moans Magnus’ name just as he bottoms out. Magnus is so overcome that he barely lasts, his magic losing control. 

His climax is ripped out of him almost violently. Alexander still rides him like a prized stallion and it is not until Alexander curls over him, grips on to his shoulders and says, “They’re beautiful,” and brings himself over the edge to completion that Magnus realizes the glamour has fallen off of his eyes.

It is not unusual – habitual, even – for Magnus to feel a certain affection to those he beds, but as he looks at Alexander lying on the ground beside him, tracing patterns onto Magnus’ bare shoulder – he cannot help but think that this is different. Exceptional, somehow.

Certainly, the way Alexander is looking at him–

“Alexander,” he starts, before finding the words have been robbed from him.

“Hmm?”

“Have we–” Magnus stops himself. What is he thinking? There is no world in which he can ask, _have we met before, perhaps in a dream?_ even if there is nothing else that can explain this inexplicable gravity between the two of them. This indescribable connection.

Instead he says, “You are not repulsed by my warlock mark.”

Alexander huffs out a little laugh. “I think it’s fair to say I’m... the opposite of repulsed by every part of you,” he says, and goes on to prove it by rolling atop Magnus and placing a kiss on Magnus’ lips, his chin, his nose. Atop each of his closed eyes. 

“Why?”

“Because every part of you is stunning,” says Alexander. “And I knew that the second I saw you.”

There are flecks of gold dusting his mouth, from where he has pressed kisses over all of Magnus’ face. Magnus cannot help but touch it. Alexander’s sweetness is not what he had expected when he had gone out tonight, Camille’s loss still a bleeding, festering wound inside of him – but here he is, seemingly a gift for Magnus from the universe if Magnus would be brave enough to seize him, to see where this leads.

 _Have I finally gone mad?_ wonders Magnus to himself, taking Alexander’s face in one hand. Alexander closes his eyes, leans in to the touch as though that is what he was made to do. He kisses the heel of Magnus’ palm before unfolding his long, glorious legs, standing up with a crack.

He looks around the apartment. Magnus looks at how his release is trailing down the back of Alexander’s thighs.

“Where do you keep your stash?” Alexander’s voice cuts through his thoughts. At Magnus’ confused look, Alexander elaborates, “Of alcohol. I think we both need a little pick-me-up before round two.”

“Oh,” says Magnus, sitting up. He gestures at the cabinet on the other side of the room, and watches Alexander pull his pants back on, a charming show of modesty. Magnus chivalrously cleans him up with magic, and laughs a little at Alexander’s startled jump. 

Alexander throws him an exasperated look before walking over to his drink set. Magnus smiles at him, cannot keep his eyes off of him, the way the muscles of his shoulders move as he rights the two upturned glasses and pours two fingers of Magnus’ favourite whiskey in each of them. 

Alexander comes back to join him on the ground, kneeling beside him. Magnus takes the glass that Alexander offers him but does not take a sip just yet, simply holds it close to his chest.

“There is something about you,” he murmurs, repeating the words he has said earlier tonight. “I do not understand it.”

“There’s nothing to understand,” says Alexander. He knocks back a little more than is advisable for a drink so strong. “Not for tonight.” 

“The way you have been looking at me–” 

Magnus stops to wet his lips. Perhaps he is being presumptuous, but the way Alexander’s gaze follows the sweep of Magnus’ tongue – Magnus knows that he is not. He does not know how to put it in words, how the way Alexander is gentle with him makes Magnus want to run to the other side of the world to hide himself from it. 

And yet he stays right where he is, and it feels as though he and Alexander are hiding from the world instead. “The way you look at me is not how a man looks at someone he wants for a single night.”

Alexander stills.

“Have I misunderstood?” asks Magnus softly, carefully. He almost wants the answer to be yes, but–

“No,” replies Alexander, voice rough. 

He does not say anything else. He is looking at Magnus with the force of entire galaxies behind his eyes. From the start of this night Magnus has had no defenses against Alexander’s gaze, the heat behind which is enough to shatter the iron fortress Magnus had fooled himself into thinking he had built around himself. Love has always been his Achilles’ heel, and there is no way to fall in love with a soul in the span of one hour but it is enough to find a promise. A hope.

“We have the rest of the night left ahead,” says Magnus, and he finally turns to his drink for the courage he needs. With the whiskey burning down his throat, Magnus says, “But if you – if you are willing, I would like to see you in the morning. Not just in the cover of darkness.”

Alexander’s eyes are oddly bright. His voice is hoarse as he says, “You can see me every morning for as long as you want, Magnus.”

“How lovely,” murmurs Magnus, reaching out to touch Alexander’s lovelier face. It’s the last thing he sees before he drifts off to sleep.

More than a century later and under the light of the morning sun, it’s the face that greets Magnus when he blinks his eyes open.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! please feel free to leave a kudo if you enjoyed :D


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